


Multiply

by sannlykke



Series: SASO 2017 [6]
Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Body Horror, Emotional Manipulation, Implied/Referenced Suicide (Non-major character), M/M, Psychological Horror, Supernatural Elements, Tomie - Junji Ito, past Aomine Daiki/Himuro Tatsuya
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-10
Updated: 2017-07-10
Packaged: 2018-11-15 02:30:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11221413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sannlykke/pseuds/sannlykke
Summary: There’s a new student in one of his classes. He must be new, otherwise Shuuzou would definitely have noticed him before—how could anyone not? The way Tatsuya smiles like he means it at anyone who comes up to him, his soft laughter after someone tells a joke, the raven sheen of his hair that falls across his left eye like some manga character come to life.And the way he turns and catches Shuuzou’s gaze—accidental or not, the curvature of his lips is not something Shuuzou is apt to forget for the coming days.





	Multiply

**Author's Note:**

> for [this](http://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/22249.html?thread=11961321#cmt11961321) saso2017 br2 prompt. the fic would make more sense if you've seen/read tomie, but in case you haven't, [wiki's](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomie) got ya covered.
> 
> im sorry niji for posting this on ur birthday but i drew happy stuff for u too ok!! so!! /rolls away and dies
> 
> **PLEASE read the tags before proceeding!**

When news breaks out of a college student found dismembered behind one of the dormitories in the university across from town, Shuuzou gets a call from his mother.  
  
“Be careful, okay? You never know what kind of people…”  
  
“I know, mom,” Shuuzou says, looking out his window at the commotion below. “I know. I’ll be careful.”  
  
  
  
There’s a new student in one of his classes. He must be new, otherwise Shuuzou would definitely have noticed him before—how could anyone not? The way Tatsuya smiles like he means it at anyone who comes up to him, his soft laughter after someone tells a joke, the raven sheen of his hair that falls across his left eye like some manga character come to life.  
  
And the way he turns and catches Shuuzou’s gaze—accidental or not, the curvature of his lips is not something Shuuzou is apt to forget for the coming days.  
  
  
  
Of course Tatsuya picks for himself only the best. Shuuzou watches him leave the room after class, someone else’s well-toned arm slung around him—the ace on his team. Of course.  
  
He won’t call himself jealous, no—there’s no shortage of beautiful people in Shuuzou’s life, and his life being divided between captaining and schoolwork and his father’s illness gives him little time for dating. Still, Shuuzou can’t help looking in that particular direction every time he arrives for class.  
  
He can’t look away.  
  
  
  
“Cursed?”  
  
“Yeah, five star players in two years? You don’t think there’s a serial killer—”  
  
“I mean, California’s got no shortage of those…but the way they died, I wouldn’t…”  
  
Shuuzou walks past them, thumbing the screen of his phone so the music in his ears drums louder and louder. He’s heard the coaches talk in low tones during the end of practices, behind closed doors. Why they bother he doesn’t know—it’s an open secret across campus how much of a blow this has been to their team.  
  
What the hell kind of serial killer would be going around targeting basketball players? Across the state, even? If it were true, it could only be someone with a helluva grudge with the sport. A ridiculous thought, but Shuuzou can already feel the unease taking root.  
  
He makes a mental note to hold another meeting with his vice captains for counseling.  
  
  
  
Himuro Tatsuya sidles up to him one sunny afternoon after class, just when Shuuzou’s about to head down to his car.  
  
“Hey,” he says, his voice just as angelic as Shuuzou had imagined it being directed towards him. “You’re Shuuzou, right?”  
  
Shuuzou swallows, suddenly very aware of how close Tatsuya’s face is. _With a face like that, the lack of personal space he’s giving Shuuzou could only be intentional._ “Yeah, you’re…Tatsuya.”  
  
“Mm-hmm.”  
  
“I’m sorry about Daiki,” Shuuzou says, and then mentally smacks himself. _Who the fuck says that?_ “I mean—“  
  
“No, it’s okay.” He looks away briefly, lips pressed into a thin line. It’s hard to tell what he’s thinking with that hair over one eye, but Shuuzou (very wisely, in his mind) does not say anything until Tatsuya turns back again, face smoothing over into a smile. Unfairly pretty, and a little wistful. “It was awful. I wish he’d talked to me…though I’m sure the team took it harder, he was such a good player.“  
  
“Yeah,” Shuuzou replies, staring at his beauty mark. “It’s…bad. But you were with him.”  
  
“Yes,” Tatsuya says lightly, touching his arm in a gesture of— _oh_. “I was.”  
  
  
  
Against his better judgment, as if he had any semblance of good judgment left from the moment he set eyes on Tatsuya, Shuuzou takes him home.  
  
  
  
“Do you think I’m good?”  
  
Shuuzou catches the ball, wiping off his forehead as he readies himself for another shot. “Do you even need to ask? Why didn’t you sign up for tryouts?”  
  
“I transferred, remember?”  
  
“Next semester, then,” Shuuzou says, and shoots. He doesn’t say anything as he watches Tatsuya pick up the ball, get into position, let it fly like he were dancing instead of playing under the sweltering afternoon sun. He doesn’t say anything after their one-on-one, when Tatsuya kisses him, his back against the rusted metal fencing, burning up in more ways than one. Shuuzou holds him tight, savoring the taste of Tatsuya in his mouth, his skin beneath Shuuzou’s fingers, and they stay doing that until he can’t remember a thing anymore.  
  
  
  
“He’s good,” the coach says. “Aomine was better, but well, what can we do about that.”  
  
Shuuzou’s makes a noncommittal noise, looking up from his clipboard to where Tatsuya is standing a few feet away, and freezes.  
  
_What was that just now?_  
  
Tatsuya’s looking away again, but for a moment—for the briefest of moments, the anger that’d swept across his face had sent chills down Shuuzou’s spine.  
  
_I must’ve been imagining it._  
  
  
  
“Shuu,” he whispers, in the dark of the night, one hand pressed against Shuuzou’s chest and the other tugging at his zipper, “Can I ask you a favor?”  
  
  
  
When Shuuzou comes to he is kneeling, staring at the red slick across his hands, the unmistakable smell of blood assaulting his every sense.  
  
“What the fuck—“  
  
Something jerks his head upwards roughly. Tatsuya is looking down on him, the glint of metal around his neck cold and bright. His lips are curved, but it’s not the gentle smile Shuuzou had come to know over the past few weeks. “Do you remember anything?”  
  
“No, I don’t even know—what the hell happened, Tatsuya?”  
  
Tatsuya leans down to kiss him, his fingers balled up into a fist at Shuuzou’s collar. “A favor.”  
  
  
  
The next night, after the police had finished questioning the entire team, Shuuzou calls Tatsuya, his phone so slippery he almost drops it when the line connects.  
  
“What the hell happened last night?”  
  
“I was at your place,” Tatsuya says over the line, innocently as can please. If he’s lying, he’s doing a pretty damned good job, and Shuuzou realizes too late he honestly cannot tell at all.  
  
“Not fucking that, the…the bl—“  
  
“You had a nightmare,” Tatsuya replies, concern creeping into his voice. “You were crying—well, at least it sounded like that to me. Relax, Shuu. I know it’s hard—“  
  
“You…you sure?”  
  
“I’m sure,” Tatsuya says, with a voice like honey. “Please, get some rest.”  
  
  
  
It’s the first murder of a coach instead of a student, Shuuzou finds out when he finally finds it in him to Googles the string of murders across the state. News he’s known about for a while, yes, but he’d never had cause to look into it so deeply until now.  
  
Each and every one of them had been a promising young athlete, poised to become or already the team’s ace. Shuuzou traces them across the state, across state lines, his fear deepening with each new page. Two of them had died killing each other over a love interest; the third had disappeared. The fourth was dismembered, and fifth found found in his dorm room, having committed suicide in some unspecified fashion.  
  
Then something else catches his eye, a small headline at the bottom of an article he’s got open: _Two students die in apparent murder-suicide in school gym._  
  
Shuuzou clicks on it, and the photos, tiny and blurry as they are, stop him dead.  
  
_That’s Tatsuya._  
  
It can’t be—but even now Shuuzou can see the beauty mark under the man’s eye as he reads on. The redhead next to Tatsuya’s— _no, it can’t be_ —photo had apparently killed and dismembered him, then hung himself from the podium.  
  
No explanation had been given except for the fact that both of them played basketball.  
  
Shuuzou closes his laptop and crawls, slowly, into bed.  
  
  
  
He ignores Tatsuya’s calls, addresses his concerned messages on Facebook with a hasty “dad’s gotten worse, i’ll be mia for a few days”, and stops attending class altogether.  
  
_What did you do?_  
  
When he pulls up the Facebook profiles of the dead athletes—the lone one that hadn’t been deleted yet, anyway—he notices something in one of the photographs: a shadowy figure standing to the side, far from the camera.  
  
But his face stares right back at Shuuzou from the screen, and he almost screams.  
  
_Tatsuya?_  
  
_But he’s looking…away._  
  
His profile is clear, appearing to be smiling or in mid-conversation with someone just out of frame. But behind Tatsuya’s long fringe, just under his ear, Shuuzou can see the outline of a face protruding from where nothing but skin should be.  
  
_It’s smiling._  
  
_It’s smiling, and he can’t look away._  
  
  
  
_Whatever the hell he is, he needs to disappear._  
  
  
  
“Is your dad okay?”  
  
“Yeah, he…he’s fine now, I think.”  
  
“Shuu…”  
  
Tatsuya’s curled up against Shuuzou, nestling his head against the crook of his neck, his breathing even and shallow against Shuuzou’s skin. A week ago Shuuzou might’ve found it comforting, seductive even, but now—  
  
“Do you love me, Shuu?”  
  
The knife almost slips through his hands, but he steadies it at the last moment. “You know the answer, Tatsuya.”  
  
Tatsuya sighs against him, petulant. “I want to hear you say it.”  
  
“Then,” Shuuzou says, aiming, closing his eyes, “I love you, Tatsuya.”

 

He’s watched enough crime shows to know fire is the best way, the safest way, and he knows Los Angeles well enough by now to find a good spot to do that.

 

_I want to be with you._

_Why are you still here?_

_Shuu…_

 

He wakes up in a cold sweat, blankets twisted and clammy against his body. Shuuzou looks at the alarm clock next to him, his breath shallow and fast as he turns it around and lays back in bed.  
  
“That’s not what you want,” he says, staring up at the ceiling. Nothing is there, of course, but—he closes his eyes. “That’s not what you want at all.”  
  
  
  
He’s at a party, finally—the smell of alcohol dimming his senses, but this is what he needs right now. There’s a couple to the left of him on the couch making out noisily, and his companion’s gone off in search of more things to fuck himself up with.  
  
He’s at a house party, for athletes and groupies and what-have-you, and Shuuzou turns around to check out who’s taken up the seat next to him when he sees someone he’d never thought he’d see again.  
  
“Hello,” Tatsuya says, his beautiful smile too fresh in Shuuzou’s memory to be anything but a nightmare. “Nijimura Shuuzou, right?”  
  
  
  
“What the fuck _are_ you,” Shuuzou whispers, when they’re both out back, his hands around Tatsuya’s neck. Tatsuya laughs, the strangled noise escaping his throat the least thing from pretty. “How—how did you—“  
  
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Shuu,” Tatsuya whispers, trying to get close, but Shuuzou slams him back down on the ground, his knee on Tatsuya’s stomach. The bruises on his face would be far from permanent, but it is enough for Shuuzou to steel his gaze. “Won’t you please let me go?”  
  
“You—“  
  
“After all, you’ve killed two people already,” Tatsuya murmurs, his dark hair matted and bloody against his face. Shuuzou had punched him the moment Tatsuya had finished his question, which had gotten both of them thrown out. None of that matters anymore, though. Shuuzou’s fist stops mid-air, and he stares down at Tatsuya, heart pounding. “Don’t you think that’s enough?”  
  
“You’re not a person,” Shuuzou whispers. “You’re not—“  
  
Tatsuya bolts up suddenly, bumping their heads together painfully. Shuuzou wobbles but doesn’t fall despite the alcohol, but there is nothing he could do to stop Tatsuya from leaning in and kissing him, tongue and all, and Shuuzou finds himself responding before he recognizes the nauseating taste of blood in his own mouth.  
  
_“No!”_  
  
Shuuzou pushes him away, and this time, does not hold back.  
  
(Tatsuya’s laughter echoes through the woods far longer into the night than he stays alive.

 

  
  
In the morning, when Shuuzou looks into the mirror, he sees under the heavy bags of his right eye a tiny mole starting to form.


End file.
